


Vinny the ladies man

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Vinny gets a life [19]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4759163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Buddy,” she says. “Every time I see him he spends like the whole time staring at you, and when he isn’t staring at you, he’s glaring at me for daring to know you first. I think if I’d told him we were married in the playground court of law he would have murdered me.”</p><p>“That’s just Tony,” Thomas mumbles.</p><p>“Okay, then we have two choices,” Megan says. “Serial killer or madly in love with you. I vote for the non-serial killer thing.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vinny the ladies man

Thomas could spend his free weekend sulking, watching TV and drinking wine in his underwear, and he’s tempted, even does, Friday night, Anton in the mountains, Meggie in Toronto, Fourns in Chicago, and Thomas watching Top Chef and drinking wine from a juice glass, which would offend the hell out of two out of three of them. But it’s not in his nature to sulk, not really, so on Saturday morning he heads to the arena Veronique hosts the goaltending workshops at, early enough to catch Veronique before the girls come in.

“You mind if I sit in?” Thomas asks.

“Don’t be stupid,” Veronique says. “C’mon.”

The girls are gratifyingly excited to see him when they come onto the ice.

“Guys, this is my friend Vinny,” Veronique says.

“We know who he is!” the tiniest girl says, almost swallowed up by her pads, like Thomas was at her age. She instantly reminds him of Vanessa, and he tells himself sternly he’s not allowed to have favourites, but by the end of the workshop she’s totally won him over, and skates up to him, a little wobbly in her pads, to pepper him with questions about the season.

“Fournier was my favourite,” she says dolefully.

“Don’t tell, but mine too,” Thomas says, and she grins at him, wide, a gap toothed smile since she’s missing a few of her baby teeth. She continues to ask about the season until a woman, presumably her mom, starts gesturing pointedly from behind the glass.

“I have to go,” she says, tragic again. “Will you be back next week?”

“Next week I have a game,” Thomas says. “But hopefully I can come again? If you want?”

“Yes!” she says. “Fournier was my favourite, but you’re my favourite now! You and Veronique, of course.”

“Not Connors?” Thomas asks, and she shakes her head decisively, braids flying now that they’re not tucked under her helmet.

“Papa says he plays like an Anglo,” she says, with audible disgust, and Thomas can barely stifle a laugh. 

“He is an Anglo,” Thomas says mildly instead.

She gives him a look that says ‘duh’, eloquent as can be, then, to a yelled “Danika!”, she turns.

“I have to go,” she says. “But come back, please!”

“I’ll do my very best,” Thomas says solemnly.

Veronique’s waiting for him by the time he gets off the ice. “Sorry,” she says. “I should have warned you about Danika.”

“I like her,” Thomas says. “Do you think I could come back sometime?”

“I think the girls will kill me if you don’t,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “You’re good with them.”

Thomas shrugs a shoulder. “I like kids,” he says. 

“Don’t go stealing their hearts away from me,” she says.

“I don’t think I could if I wanted to,” Thomas says. “They love you.”

She looks at him for a moment. “Kind of getting why Anton gushed about you the whole night,” she says. “Sure I can’t steal you away as my roomie instead?”

“Sorry,” Thomas says. “Anton got dibs.”

“Lucky boy,” she says. “At least he knows it. Come on, let me treat you to lunch, it’s the least I can do.”

“No,” Thomas tries to argue, waddling after her in his pads, her long strides leaving him behind. “No, let me!”

“Can’t hear you,” she calls back.

She doesn’t budge on the treating him thing, and they go get pizza, swapping locker room stories. She played for Canada in U18, and he’s envious, happy to suck up stories about winning gold, which he always dreamed of, maybe not as much as the NHL, but with an almost nostalgic twinge, because he knows it’ll never happen for him. 

They part ways after lunch with a promise from Thomas that he’ll make the time for another workshop and a quick hug, then he’s left to his own devices. He could go back to the TV and underwear thing, but he skypes Fourns instead, who has a game tonight and can’t talk long, but is fine handing it over to Chloe, who always gives him the real gossip, unlike Fourns, then she hands it off to the girls, who are happy to tell him how everything is going in Chicago, and how “it’s practically spring already, is it spring there?”

“Almost,” Thomas says, though there’s still a blanket of snow on the ground. “It’s definitely coming.”

He ends up falling asleep in front of the TV that night watching the Hawks game, one Fourns is playing really well in, but still loses, he finds out the next morning, frowning at the box score. Has a jittery, restless feeling under his skin from the time he wakes up, back aching from sleeping on the couch all night, groggy and off kilter. In a big, echoing, empty house, with a pit in his stomach because Anton’s not there, Anton’s never there anymore, things are fine when he’s there except he’s _never_ there, Thomas thinks he saw him more last season, and they weren’t even living together, then.

Sulking — and he knows he’s sulking, he doesn’t like it but he knows it — because he’s been so afraid of losing Anton, driving him off, and he didn’t even need to, Anton wandered off by himself, for grown up things, a girlfriend, and ‘couple’s trips’, and before Thomas knows it, who knows, marriage and kids, and Thomas knows that doesn’t make someone stop being your friend, he has the Fournier family, but he can’t imagine watching from the outside, being Uncle Vinny, and still feeling like this about Anton. 

There are officially three whole people in the world he’s talked to about this, this being, well. Him. Two, actually, since he told his mom and she told his dad for him, like he knew she would. Then there’s Megan, who told him they’d be great together at the end of high school, and had to deal with his stumbling response, because he didn’t want her to think it was her, which kind of touched on things, but mostly didn’t. She’s been figuring it out with him ever since, and he figures Megan’s got to be better at this than his parents, or at least, she’s easier to ask. 

They’ve been married for like, twenty years, according to the Ring Pop Thomas gave her before she moved to North Bay, convinced if they were married she wouldn’t forget him for new, better friends. It seemed to have worked. Sometimes Thomas wishes he could actually marry her, because it’d make his life easier and people would stop asking awkward questions, but that’s selfish. It wouldn’t be fair to her, Eric would probably fight him, and he’s sure that people wishing they could live like they were eight again are seen as pathetic, though honestly, if he could just give Anton a Ring Pop and be done with it, he would, though it’d be gay, and Anton doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, and his finger’s probably too big, and -- Thomas has gotten too involved in the metaphor or whatever it is.

The point is, he should call Megan. She’d probably know what to do. She doesn’t know about the Anton thing, no one would, if his mom hadn’t guessed, because he feels selfish and ashamed, but she knows about the first part, which is a start.

 _u free 2 talk?_ , he sends her.

 _yep just chilling in the room_ , she sends back, and he hits call.

“What’s up, favourite person,” Megan says. “I kind of thought you forgot about me.”

“I talked to you two days ago, Meg,” Thomas says.

“Exactly,” she says, and Thomas laughs.

The laughter doesn’t last. He has a mission. “So okay. I kind of didn’t tell you about something? For awhile?”

“Go,” Megan says.

“I’m kind of in love with Anton?” Thomas tries.

Megan’s quiet for awhile. Like, a suspiciously long time for her.

“Duh?” she says finally, and while Thomas is still frowning at that, “At least it’s not one way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Thomas asks.

“Other than the fact that he’s madly in love with you?” Megan asks.

“I’m not kidding,” Thomas says.

“Neither am I,” Megan says. “Why are you assuming I am?”

“Because you’re not taking this seriously,” Thomas says.

“Buddy,” she says. “Every time I see him he spends like the whole time staring at you, and when he isn’t staring at you, he’s glaring at me for daring to know you first. I think if I’d told him we were married in the playground court of law he would have murdered me.”

“That’s just Tony,” Thomas mumbles.

“Okay, then we have two choices,” Megan says. “Serial killer or madly in love with you. I vote for the non-serial killer thing.”

“He has a girlfriend,” Thomas blurts out.

She’s quiet again. Twice in one conversation is like a record. 

“You okay?” she asks.

“Not really,” Thomas says. “I mean. I don’t know, he’s never around anymore, and I’m stuck alone in this stupid house that isn’t even mine because Anton paid for it, but he’s never even _here_ —”

“Take a breath, Vin,” she says.

Thomas forces himself to do the slow inhale he needs when he gets worked up. If it works on the ice it should work off it, but there’s still a ragged edge to his breathing.

“I can come up next weekend,” she says. “How’s that sound? I mean, you’re totally obligated to pay out the nose for the platinum ticket I deserve, and beer’s on you too, but that work out okay?”

“Yeah,” Thomas says. “I’ll go out, make a shady deal with the scalpers.”

“That’s my boy,” she says.

“It’s probably Connors playing it,” Thomas says.

“Douche,” she says, reflexive, like she does whenever Thomas says Connors’ name, and it doesn’t fail to make him laugh. “You know that’s better for my blood pressure, though. I think the playoffs last year gave me an ulcer, and Eric didn’t talk to me for days when I told him I’d be cheering for the Sens over my dead body. You’re a relationship ruiner, buddy.”

She’s told that story like a half dozen times now, but Thomas isn’t tired of it. She may not be from Ottawa, but she’s lived there almost ten years now, and she cheers for the Sens just as long as they’re not playing the Habs, was like that even when Thomas was playing for the Bulldogs, to Eric’s Ottawa-born-and-raised chagrin.

“Gotta go,” she says. “Eric’s been pouting at me since I called you my favourite person — it’s not an attractive look, Eric! — but we’ll have sleepover Saturday, okay? And I’m going to say a lot of mean things about Anton and his serial killer tendencies and you’re going to shush me but secretly like it.”

“He’s not a serial killer,” Thomas laughs.

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” she says. “Love you best. _C’mon,_ Eric.”

“Love you too, Meg,” Thomas says. “Love to Eric.”

“He’s giving us the finger right now, but I think it’s meant lovingly,” she says.

“It isn’t!” he hears Eric yell in the background, and they’re both laughing when they hang up.

There’s a lot of day left, still, so Thomas does some things they may not have time for in the upcoming crunch — goes grocery shopping, making sure to pick up some of Anton’s favourites so he doesn’t sulk at him when he comes back, picking up a case of beer for Megan, and signing a few autographs. He pulled an Anton yesterday morning, brought a sharpie and some hockey cards for the girls, and there are a few still in his coat pocket when he runs into a family of four, the little boy peeking up at him through his father’s legs, the little girl tucking her fingers in his cart and asking shyly if he can sign something, “maybe, my. Um. Daddy, can we buy something to sign?”, which means the cards come pretty handy.

He may not get stopped as much as Anton, but he thinks maybe he’ll start bringing things along, just in case, just for the wide eyed looks he receives when he produces the cards and the sharpie from his pocket, signing one for each of them, like he’s a magician as well as a goalie.

By the time Anton gets home that night, Thomas has booked a train ticket for Meg to save her the drive, found a seller for a platinum ticket that is, as Megan said, stupidly expensive. Made a few simple meals to stick in the freezer, save himself the trouble of cooking, maybe cut down a little on their take-out habit. By the time he hears Anton’s key in the lock he’s eaten dinner and is having a glass of wine in front of the TV, but a well deserved glass of wine, he thinks, because he was productive.

He hears the thump of Anton’s bag in the hall, and then Anton’s coming into the living room.

“How was your trip?” Thomas asks, craning his neck up to look at where Anton’s towering over the couch. 

“Good,” Anton says, sitting lightly on Thomas’ legs until he tucks them up, makes room. “How was your weekend?”

Thomas puts his feet in Anton’s lap, swallows when Anton wraps a hand around his ankle, idle. “Good,” he says, and it isn’t even a lie.


End file.
